You really should try prenatal yoga,” Maya was saying. She was calling from her cell, fresh from a class near Union Square. I had a mental image of her in yoga pants with her Marc Jacobs coat from last year, hair pulled back, carrying a purple yoga mat rolled up and slung in a carrier on her back – the sweaty chic look that, in recent years, has become so ubiquitous.

“Prenatal yoga seems great,” she was saying. “Come to think of it, I’m more interested in doing prenatal yoga than getting pregnant. I can’t believe you haven’t done it yet.”

I could. Unlike what seems like the rest of the city’s female population, I’m just not a yoga girl. I prefer Pilates.

This, however, had never deterred my yoga-obsessed friend, who, for the better part of the last five years had been trying to get me into it. “You have to try this class,” she’d say. “The instructor, Shiva” – the instructors were always named Shiva or Nama or Rama, never Jennifer – “is amazing.” It seems the only religious holdover in today’s yoga-crazed world is the urge to proselytize.

I’ve caved a number of times and attended a class only to find myself bored and uncomfortable for 90 minutes – or, more accurately, 80 – I’d be bored and comfortable for the last ten or so, lying on my back with my eyes closed during the final meditation, thinking of all the better things I could have been doing. The worst part was the competitive air that permeates the classes: All these lithe yogettes were checking out how far the person on the mat next door was bending. At the end of the class, Maya would turn to me, blissed out and perspiring and say, “wasn’t that amazing?” I’d nod and say, “mmm-hmmm,” and never go to the class again.

But Maya’s entreaties were having a different effect this time. Perhaps because of my ever-expanding belly was making it harder to access my core, prenatal yoga seemed infinitely more appealing than regular yoga. In fact, thanks to the many glowing posts about it on Citybaby, prenatal yoga seemed like a pregnancy rite of passage.

The question was where to take a class. There were a few yoga studios in my neighborhood, all of which – a quick Googling had determined – offered prenatal classes. Which one was best? I knew exactly where to find the answer.

After months of trolling the “expecting” board and telling myself that “browsing,” meant “not addicted,” the time had come for my first official citybaby post. After all, this was what the message boards were for – not the prurient posts about pushy mothers-in-law and possibly cheating husbands that made for scintillating reading.

I typed the words I knew would begin a whole new chapter in my Citybabying: “any recs for prenatal yoga in bklyn?” I added “tia” – thanks in advance – at the end, and then hit “enter.”

In seconds, I had three replies: one for a studio in Brooklyn Heights, “but the room gets kind of stuffy,” another for a place on Smith Street where,” teacher is good, but studio feels like your friend’s apartment. “The last one read, “Luv my class at Union Yoga in the Slope. Great teacher, great fellow preggos. It and this board are the best things about being pregnant!”

With a rave like that, I overlooked the cutesy spelling of “love” and the exclamation point. Determined to take their next prenatal class, I checked Union Yoga’s online schedule.

A few days later, I found myself in the plant and batik-heavy skylit studio. Just down the block from the famous Park Slope Food Co-op, it retained a more-hippie-than-sleek 1970s air – which, despite thousands of years of the practice, now qualifies as old school. The “old school” label could have applied not just to the yoga, but to the side of Park Slope it represented: the crunchy, Birkenstock-wearing, soup-making pre-Fifth Avenue Park Slope of the 1990s.

There were about eight other women positioned around the room on mats with varying degrees of belly. Lowering myself onto my rented mat, I figured my prominent-but-not-huge bump was at about the class’s midpoint.

Soon enough, a non-pregnant woman entered the class. She wore a simple white tank top, gray yoga pants, and a wide, welcoming smile. “How’s everyone feeling today?” she asked, seating herself at the front of the room. Smiles and groans erupted around the room in response.

“I am so swollen,” a big-bumper in sweats to the left of me said. “I could barely make it here.”

“Oh, Amy,” the instructor winced. “You’re how many days past your due date?” The woman held up two fingers.

“Well, let’s see if we can do something today to make you more comfortable.”

“I’m still so nauseous,” said a barely-there bumper in the front row. “I’m four months now and wondering when this morning sickness will stop.”

The woman next to me with a bump the size of mine said, “Mine stopped four and a half months into it.”

“We’ll try to get you in some restorative positions,” the teacher nodded reassuringly.

“So,” she continued, clapping her hands to her thighs. “I see a few new faces. Why don’t we start by introducing ourselves, and saying how far along we are in our pregnancies?”

As we went around the room doing so, I felt myself surprisingly comforted. There was something nice about being in a room full of pregnant women; it was a real-life, non-bitchy version of the Citybaby message board. I could see why the poster who led me here had “luved” it.

We hadn’t even begun the mellow, slow-paced, go-as-far-as-you-want, non-judgmental workout, but one thing was already clear: Prenatal yoga was my scene.

When I returned home, I headed straight for Citybaby. “Tried union yoga prenatal today,” I typed. “Thanks to the poster who recommended it.”

In seconds, I had a reply: “Glad you liked it! Couldn’t make today’s, but maybe I’ll see you there next week!”

Catching her exclamation point bug, I typed back: “I’ll be there!”

The Brooklyn Chronicles, a work of fiction, appears each Friday. Previous installments are available at www.nysun.com/archive_chronicles.php. The author can be reached at kschwartz@nysun.com.